This Much I Know
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day one hundred and ninety-four: No one else seems to see something is wrong with Finn, but Quinn can see it.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a second cycle, and then a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eigth cycle, and ninth cycle._

_Now comes the tenth cycle. And since that feels like it should be special, this is what I'm doing: Cycle 10 will feature my top 15 of some favorite things from Glee. Characters, ships, friends... It will be daily ficlets for numbers 15 down to 2, but number 1 will be a 7-chapter story :) Here we go!_  
_**Coming in at number eleven!**_

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**"This much I know"  
Finn/Quinn**

He would make her laugh. Even on the worse days, he could just turn things around, get a smile on her face even when she didn't think she could. She'd get morning sickness, and then there he'd be, ready to see her through. He'd sit with her, and… they'd talk. She'd never gotten to know him the way she did, with the two of them sitting on that tiny bathroom floor.

She didn't have that anymore. She didn't have him anymore. Sometimes she couldn't stand it, knowing how much she'd screwed things up, most of all with him. She'd made mistakes, and now she had to live with them.

But it didn't change that she knew him, more than either of them could explain. She knew when he was alright… she knew when he wasn't.

It wasn't as though she expected him to bounce right back, that he'd forget… what she'd done to him. But looking at him in the halls, in Glee practice, she could see it. She didn't know what Brittany and Santana were up to, though she was fairly certain who'd put them up to it.

He was easy prey to them right now, and she didn't want him to get hurt more than he already had. She'd opened the way…

She kept her eye on him after that, all the while thinking how she needed to find a way to help him. She knew something was wrong, and no one else seemed to have caught on. But how was she supposed to help? She'd told herself she'd leave him be, that she owed him that much. How was she supposed to keep that promise and help him at the same time? She couldn't leave it alone. Maybe she could wave it, just this once… It was for the right reason.

It took her a couple of days to find the opportunity. Finally, she saw him, lagging at the end of class. She hesitated for a moment, getting up from her desk and moving toward him.

"Finn?" she spoke up and he looked at her. She could see he was just as hesitant as she was, around her.

"Hey…" he finally spoke. He didn't know what to say… They hadn't really spoken, not since they had… parted ways. The silence started to set in. "Is everything alright?" he looked down at her. Even if he knew the baby wasn't his now, it didn't mean he could just stop caring the way he had for all these months. She smiled carefully, nodding. It could have been easy for her to forget what she'd set out to do and just settle into having a talk with him for the first time in a while. But she remembered and, as difficult as it could be, to approach the subject, she had to do it.

"Everything alright with you?" she started off, staring up at him, as though to say 'you know what I mean.' Finn looked at her, balancing his bag over his shoulder.

"I'm fine," he shrugged.

"Finn…" she repeated slowly. He looked at her, holding back from saying what was on his mind. She looked sad, concerned for him… But he still couldn't help but think…

"This is still kind of…"

"I know," she kept him from having to hit that spiral. "You can still talk to me, about other things, or… you know…"

"Yeah," he still couldn't quite meet her eye, though she could tell he was trying. She could see a lot of what he tried to hide, like no barrier could stand in her way. He still had those rare little things he could sneak by though, the most prominent of those being that he wasn't over her, which only made this more difficult.

"Look…" she started, looking ahead, much as he was, "I can understand if you don't want to talk, o-or you can't." She looked back to him, and he looked back to her. "But if you ever change your mind… I'm there." It was a small moment, but it swallowed up the bad blood away, just long enough.

"I know," he assured her. Finally he gave her a nod and turned away. Quinn breathed out, knowing she'd done her part.

Lying in bed that night, it took her a time to fall asleep, thinking… yes, she was with Puck now… but those months, the ones she'd spent in Finn's care, they didn't go away, nor did she want them to. They'd stay with her, and maybe one day she could tell her daughter about the first father she'd ever had. Maybe he wasn't biologically related to her, but he'd cared for her and loved her just as well, and in Quinn's book, that counted for a lot. It counted for everything.

THE END


End file.
